Hoop Blah The sad thing is that your post just re-emphasises the way the modern game is going (I think it was your original point before we went off on details and tangents) in terms of the short termism and cheque book mentality. Coppell, and Pardew before, made (largely) astute signings for specific reasons and you could usually see the logic behind them.
McDermott was the same, albeit with a few more dodgy cheap punts on randoms with little or no chance of success, but with the influx of more and more money the time needed to evolve and build a squad and a team just isn't afforded managers anymore.
It's just another aspect of football at this level going to pot.
That's for being able to decipher my guff
Although there are similiarities and I hope we veer more towards what we did back then, the football climate both in general and at the club McD faced in his first stint was different to the one operated by Coppell just as the task and environment he faces now is different to the one he faced in his original stint.
As much as the whole Bournemouth fairytale is something of a myth , there is a methodology there , which mirrors our way of building continuity and adding quality where necessary from the past. Obviously the stakes are higher now and their income v outlay is way beyond what ours was but it's easy to forget that we ran at pretty significant losses each year prior to 05/06.
As with the relative recent successes of Swansea, Soton and even Stoke,who were our peers for pretty much the whole time we were building up to the Premiership, having a clear direction and policy is a first big step.
That's where the Thais have been lacking thus far (and to be fair it's early days) because off the field in terms of development on the non-footballing side they appear to know what they're doing. However they've been a lot of mixed messages sent out in our transfer policy and indeed in terms of contracts which has let the previous two managers down to some degree.
It's still early days of course but I'm hoping we're beginning to see the start of a clear direction in terms of the footballing side.
BTW As I was writing the previous post it occurred to me that one of the best signings we made prior to 05/06 wasn't a player at all but was Eamonn Dolan. Think he's had a huge influence on the evolution of the club in his time here.
at the amount of games Cummings played in McD's promotion season.
